My review from Ingrid Hall!

Ever see something cool and think, "Hey, I wanna do that!" Well, I saw author and blogger Ingrid Hall doing interviews and book reviews, I said, "Hey, I wanna do that!" I was really excited to see it today, and it's a pretty good review! Go check out Ingrid's blog and her books!

http://www.ingridhall.com/

Bad Grammar-Is It Really Bad?

     Well, I have gone and done it. I have gone and written and published a book that is full of good people who are smart and educated and drive cars and can go on dates and read books and everything, but their grammar-is bad. Not all of them, and not all the time. Some of them do it all of the time, and most of them do it some of the time, but what is really going on? Were they not paying attention in English class when their teachers rapped their knuckles with rulers and drove home the point, "Mother, may I?"

       In the last couple of years that I have been writing, I have been thinking about this issue, I'm sure, a lot more than most people do. Since I decided to write the way people actually speak, I had to start listening. Really listening. I really listen to myself more, and since I was writing about Western New Yorkers (state, not city), I was mostly listening to them while I was living back there a couple of years ago. I live in Utah now, and when we first came here, people would say that they could tell I wasn't from here or that I was from back east. Sometimes speech alone can make us feel like we have landed on another planet. I remember years ago, being in the car in Tennessee when my father was trying to find the house of someone named 'Brown.' He actually stopped and asked someone. "You lookin' fer Bray-own?" the man said, to my father's blank stare. Finally Dad said, "Did you say 'Brown' or 'Bray-own?'" "Bray-own," the man answered. "Bray-own? I'm looking for Brown," my father said. "Yeah, Bray-own," said the man. This conversation might have gone on indefintely if I hadn't gotten out of the car and whispered to my Dad, "He's saying Brown." To this day, I don't remember if we ever found Mr. Brown, but I will never forget that conversation. My father came out of that interaction thinking that the man must be an idiot, and the man probably thought the same thing about him. It was truly a language barrier.

       But people from the south are not the only people with accents. Everyone has an accent. If you speak, you have an accent. And so I move on to the question of grammar. Southerners use the term "y'all" to refer to several people. Where I come from, we don't use y'all-we say "yis," "youse," and "youse guys." It means the same thing. If you don't want to go someplace, you might say, "I am not going." If your friends insist and you still don't want to go, you can make a more powerful statement by saying, "I ain't going!" It might be improper grammar, but it's also more forceful. The guy who says 'ain't' knows he ain't supposed to say ain't, but its use doesn't make him stupid. It's part of the way we speak there, if we choose to. If you go walking through my small town of Medina, New York and just listen, you'll hear it. You'll hear ain't, and glorious double negatives like "ain't got no," "don't have no," and the wonderful "don't want no." Do you shower or do you take a shower? Do you use a drawer, or do you, like my Grandma, keep your clothes in a draw? If you accidentally hit your thumb with a hammer, would you let out a string of swear words that would be familiar to most, or would you say, "MINSKYA!" which is heavily in favor in my region of New York (and do you know what it means?).

Julie Coulter Bellon: First Page Friday

Julie Coulter Bellon: First Page Friday: This week's entry had an interesting opening from Wikipedia.  I couldn't wait to see what Ms. Shreditor said about it. Thank you t...

The Climb

It was time again to load the dishwasher, and being a tiresome task, it always gets me to stick music in my ears to make it bearable. First up, Miley Cyrus- The Climb. Now, I love the song, but I have always had an issue with it. She says that it doesn't matter what's on the other side of the mountain, what matters is the climb! And I always think, "Nonsense girl! Of course it matters, what's on the other side! Else we wouldn't climb at all!" As I distractedly decided what dishes went where (competition for the top rack is keen), I decided I wasn't being fair. Maybe I hadn't given Miley sufficient time to explain herself. I hit 'back' and listened to it again. And I tried to think about my climb. Maybe I haven't climbed far enough yet to really be an expert-after all, I'm probably only a quarter of the way up the mountain. And, what IS on the other side? I don't even know, really. So, what has my climb showed me? A lot of things, when I really think about it. I have learned how important editing is, even though I haven't had a professional editor. A friend and I just read my books-over and over and over and try to comb out every mistake, every inconsistency in my text (bless you Bonnie Findlay!). I have also seen books that have had either little, no or extremely poor editing, and man, I can tell you, keep that stuff off the bookshelves, please, cyber and otherwise. They are actually painful to read. There is absolutely nothing (in reading) like a fine, polished novel, and I never knew that before. I have also learned that I'm not going to fool with agents if I can help it-or I should say, that I am not going to kiss their fine little hinnies to get their attention. If I should happen upon one who wants to take me on, that might be different. I think they are just so inundated with requests that they have to be fussy. I hate the infamous 'query letter' process. All it means to me is that a potentially fabulous manuscript is being dismissed out of hand because my one page query letter wasn't worded in a way that pushed that agent's little buttons. When I looked into Amazon's FREE self publishing service, I decided to try it. If it doesn't work out, if you don't like it, you can unpublish and keep trying with mainstream publishers. But, I found out that I do like it. I like the total control I have over everything. Aside from all this, though, the most important thing I have found out is who I can count on and who I can't. Forgive any misuse of mine of the word 'who' (as opposed to 'whom'). Since I was little kid, I have known the correct usage of 'whom,' but to me it just sounded ridiculous. I have always refused to use the word. Anyway, I digress. I found out who I can count on and who I can't. There are some people, friends and family both, who wouldn't read my book because they don't want to read anything about Mormons. What, are they afraid they might read something that's true that they don't want to think is true? I don't know, and I don't ask them. There is another group, small in number, I hope, who aren't reading it because they have pretty much always been of the opinion that I probably wouldn't make anything of myself, and who am I to think I have the brains to write a book? Those people just aren't bothering to waste their time reading something I wrote (so I can surmise that none of those people are reading this!). There is another group who have found out in the last few months that they don't agree with me politically, and so have not been a support to me. I didn't diss them when I found out that they were liberals, or democrats, or whatever, but I guess they didn't feel the same tolerance. And actually, many liberal democrat friends did NOT do that to me-so, I don't mean you! All of the above might make me sound bitter, but honestly, I'm not. I have been buoyed up by the other people-the ones who have been a support. Who have bought the book, or downloaded it. Or, maybe if they couldn't afford it, downloaded it on the free days, like today and tomorrow (and I know how that is-I am right there with you). Or at the very least, for people who have just continued with the positive comments and pats on the back. Once I found out who I couldn't count on, I found I wasn't even hurt and had very litle trouble basically dismissing them. The ones that count are the ones that have stood by me. The facebook likes, the positive comments, the reviews on Amazon, the ones who have told their friends about me and have recommended my books, the ones who have handed out my blasted bookmarks, read my books, and have tirelessly pre-read those books for me, being experimented on like literary guinea pigs. Thank you Bonnie Findlay and April Elzinga! The first group (we'll call them group S, S for stinky) has actually done me a valuable service. You have to get rid of the dead weight or you'll never make it up the mountain. So, I am looking at Miley's motto in a more favorable light. The destination still matters to me-maybe making the New York Times bestseller list, or dare I hope (probably not)? Oprah's Book Club. But really, it ain't about what's waitin' on the other side. It's the climb.

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I have noticed that the blogs of more experienced authors are often aimed at helping new authors who are learning to navigate through shark infested waters. Some others seem to think that jumping feet first covered with blood into shark infested waters is the best way for a new author to figure out what they're doing. I decided to avoid the sharks as completely as possible. I didn't get an agent and I didn't have publishers breaking down my door. I started out doing the agent thing, query letters, etc., because I didn't know then that there was another way. I found out there were companies that you could hire to publish your book for you. But I, like many people, didn't have the money for that. Then I saw it. Publish free on Amazon. The downside is that while the process was fairly easy, I had to do everything myself. I designed the cover from a template they provided, and I'm sure that could have been done better by someone with more resources than I had. Yet, the cover, I think, turned out pretty good. The interior looks great. I was surprised, actually, by the quality of the service provided by Amazon. Heavy duty laminated paper for the cover, the pages are of excellent quality paper, and the type set looks wonderful. And now I can say I'm published. I wish now that I knew more about marketing. Right now I'm still at the point where I'm telling my friends and hoping that they'll tell their friends and that somehow it will all take off. I'm also going to sign up for Extended Distribution, a service offered by Amazon. That makes the book available to retailers and libraries.

Goodreads reviews for A Little Hair of the Dog

Reviews from Goodreads.com